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Beamex has announced it will be providing the racing team with calibration equipment for the season's final race at Silverstone.

Beamex has announced it will be teaming up with young racing driver Mark Draghicescu and his Speedsport racing team for the final race of the season at Silverstone, providing calibration equipment to hopefully meet the demanding needs of automotive and auto sport technologies. As everyone gears up for the final race of the season, Mark's Speesport racing team and Beamex hope this partnership can lead to Mark reaching the highest level of the sport, and Beamex providing equipment to assure the performance gain is consistent.

Many U.S. wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are beginning to use anaerobic digesters to produce biogas that can be used in their combined heat and power plants to generate electricity and heat. In addition, the plants are selling the biogas into the gas grid. The growing interest in biogas has led to more attention paid to measuring biogas flow and composition, because proper gas engine operationsdepends upon use of biogas with the right methane (CH4) content. New ultrasonic technology, including the OPTISONIC 7300, developed by Krohne, Inc., is being developed to provide the kind of reliable and accurate flow measurement needed to advance this important strategic energy source.
United States looks to biogas for fossil fuel alternatives…

Differential pressure transmitters are reliable, cost effective instruments to measure the hydrostatic level of a liquid in a vented or sealed tank.

Differential pressure sensors are cost effective and reliable instruments that measure the hydrostatic level of a liquid in a vented or sealed tank, and it's important to understand exactly how to utilize them to their full potential.
For a vented tank, the pressure transmitter should be mounted to the bottom. Typically, the transmitter will be threaded into the outlet line of the tank, a side bung or flange. Since a pressure transmitter provides a linear output signal, such as a 4 to 20mA signal from zero pressure to the full scale pressure, the level can be monitored based on the liquid density and the height of the tank.
For Example: Density of water at 4°C = 1 Height of tank = 35 feet = 420 inches 27.68…

Measuring pressure or calibrating pressure instruments is not that easy. These online resources can help.

Pressure In Hazardous Areas
In controlled environments, pressure measurement is relatively straightforward. However, in the mobile equipment industry and other hazardous areas, application variables can have a huge impact on pressure measurement accuracy. The consequences for pressure measurement errors can be widespread and potentially dangerous. Fortunately, by anticipating and accommodating challenges in pressure measurement common in hazardous environments, operators and engineers can prevent misreadings, damage to equipment or personnel injury, and costly downtime. This whitepaper addresses several common and sometimes difficult application challenges that need to be considered when selecting a pressure sensor, as well as some…

The International Society of Automation and Beamex will be co-hosting a free, web seminar September 1, 2015 on how to calibrate temperature instruments.

On September 1, 2015, the International Society of Automation (ISA) and Beamex will be co-hosting a a free web seminar on calibrating temperature instruments.
From 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. EST, the webinar will feature three temperature instrumentation experts: Tom Brans, Business Analyst at Honeywell; Ned Espy, Technical Director at Beamex; and Roy Tomalino, Professional Services Engineer at Beamex.
Temperature influences many physical features of matter and has a significant impact on quality, energy consumption and environmental emissions. It's no surprise then that temperature tends to be the most common and frequently measurable variable in the process industry. However, many people don't know the proper ways to calibrate temperature…

BLH Nobel Introduced a System That Quickly and Easily Checks Weighing Systems for Wiring and Mechanical Faults

Load cell weighing systems solve some of the knottiest problems in batch and level control by directly measuring masses of solids and liquids as they're accumulated, dispensed or conveyed. But the load cells must be installed and wired properly, and the load structure must be engineered and constructed correctly to distribute the measured load as axial forces on the cells. What appear on the surface to be simple wiring and construction tasks have caused more than a few problems during commissioning and maintenance due to miswired or poorly made connections, distorted or binding structures, incorrectly installed load cells or rigid connections to adjacent equipment.
Such problems often are not found until a new installation is being…

Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner Speak with Electrochemical Measurements Expert Jim Gray About the pH Electrode and Its Full Potential as a Measuring Tool

Stan: A measurement is only as good as its calibration. The pH electrode has by far the greatest sensitivity and rangeability of any measurement in the process industry. The electrode can function well in a wide spectrum of process fluids and…

This month, the editors of Control browse the web to get you the latest online resources on loop control. Here's how you can stay in the loop!

This System Is Closed
This is a basic tutorial on closed-loop control systems. It covers the basic definitions and descriptions of how closed-loop systems work, a discussion of closed-loop summing points and how to use them, transfer functions, multi-loop closed-loop systems and closed-loop motor control. The direct link is www.electronics-tutorials.ws/systems/closed-loop-system.html.Electronics Tutorials www.electronics-tutorials.ws
PID Control
VeriCal in-situ calibration verification This is a basic discussion, with illustrations, of the principles of Proportional, Integral, Derivative (PID) and how it is used with controllers. It also covers tuning rules and starting settingf for common control loops. The direct link is at…

Is it too hard, too complicated, too expensive, or does it just have a bad rap? Maybe all it needs is better marketing.

Stan: I have gotten the distinct impression from a number of users that the term "Advanced Control" is viewed negatively. I was wondering in general who feels this way (e.g., plant management, process design, operators) and why (e.g., support,…

Father of the PLC Dick Morley sets the record straight on PC-based control and what differentiates it from PLCs.

Dick Morley is considered by many to be the father of the programmable logic controller (PLC). His involvement with the creation of the first Modicon PLC for General Motors in 1968 was a historic step in the development of industrial controls.
We had the chance to sit down with Morley and ask him a variety of questions. In this third installment of our series, Morley explains the difference between the PLC and PC-based control.
Watch the previous two installments here:
The father of the PLC talks about the Internet of Things
The father of the PLC explains its birth

Advanced Control Systems receives certification from the laboratory of testing equipment and materials (LAPEM).

Advanced Control Systems (ACS) recently announced at the annual RVP-AI/2015 IEEE Mexico Conference that the laboratory of testing equipment and materials (LAPEM), an organization of the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), has awarded the company the distinguished certification from the institution that meets the needs of the electricity sector nationally and internationally.
The LAPEM certification process is a lengthy one, filled with registrations and extensive audits of ACS processes, service management, technical support and system technology.
"We are very pleased to receive such an honor," said ACS CEO Kevin Sullivan, "from such a reputable institution in our industry. LAPEM is greatly respected in providing specialized…

Control Engineering Branches Out to Manage Critical Business Variables Such as Profitability, Risk, Asset Management and Cybersecurity

Most process engineers I talk to look back on the 1970s and 1980s as the heyday of control engineering, and in many ways it was. More engineers were focused on the applications of real-time control theory then than now. And when you look at how far…

NEXCOM's new IPPC 1560TE is ingition-proof, explosion-proof and ready for anything.

NEXCOM has unveiled its new IPPC 1560TE panel PC, perfect for the hazardous locations few PCs are able to go. It has been certified by UL for class 1 division 2 (C1D2) hazardous location (HazLoc). This ensures the PC is explosion and ignition-proof, reaffirming its safety in environments including oil and gas, petrochemical manufacturing, steel and chemical industries.
UL listed, ATEX or IECEx certifications are a must in locations where flammable gases, vapors or liquids might exist. As one fire or explosion can be incredibly costly in terms of lives and money, its important to have the necessary precautions in place before tragedy strikes your facility.
In addition to the assurances against fires and explosions, the IPPC 1560TE also…

Flying with a robot at the controls could be a tough sell; How many level gauges do you need for an accurate measurement?

Q: Pilots or robots in the cockpit?
You have written many times about the potentials of automation in improving air transportation safety and efficiency. Besides writing your columns, have you done anything about that? Is ISA, NASA or anybody else…

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, misapplications of control valves in pumping systems offer a significant opportunity to save energy.(5) This article explains how the pump and control valve should be selected to save pumping energy and…

A reader asks our experts how he can prove that the actuator is large enough to handle actual process conditions. Our experts answer.

Re the February 2015 Control Talk column on the commissioning of control valves (How to Avoid Problems in Electrical and Instrument Installations): How does one go about proving that the actuator is sized large enough to handle actual process…

The editors of Control search the world wide web to find the latest online resources on motors and drives.

GROWN-UP MOTOR DRIVES
Motors and drives have been moving up to variable-speed control for better accuracy, but now they're also increasing power density and efficiency, and even coordinating more closely with PLCs and intelligent systems, according to Control executive editor Jim Montague. Learn how process operations as diverse a cement suppliers, iron ore mines, refineries and natural gas producers are using the latest drive technology in increase efficiency, reduce power usage and improve reliability. Read "Motors and Drives Grow Up and Graduate."Controlwww.controlglobal.com
A THREE-STEP PROGRAM
This three-minute video from ABB explains the basics of motor and drive sizing. Learn the three steps around application requirements, sizing…

Solutions for every stage of the process sensing, instrumentation, analysis, interface, networking and control experience light up exhibition space at Honeywell User Group America 2015.

Some user group meetings have so much good content that it starts to slosh over the sides of that metaphorical bucket. That's definitely the case at Honeywell User Group Americas 2015, where a brief Sunday afternoon preview of the demo room featured…

Rockwell Automation introduces its new Allen Bradley MobileView tethered operator interface. The mobile terminal gives plant and industrial personnel the freedom to take a machine’s human-machine interface (HMI) with them to make real-time adjustments to out-of-view applications.The inclusion of a hardwired e-stop button and three-position enabling switch also supports applications that require local safety functionality.
“Between making an adjustment on the terminal and viewing the results on the machine, fixed operator terminals can require a lot of back and forth for personnel, for certain applications,” said Matt Hansen, senior product manager atRockwell Automation. “The MobileView tethered operator interface puts the…

Operators responding to abnormal situations need better designed systems. The challenge is not inundating the operator while being sure to wake them up.

Consultants focusing on operator effectiveness have been known to draw some inspiration from military aircraft designs, which incorporate a lot of graphical depictions of flight and combat variables on their cockpit "heads-up" displays. The present…

The GX and GP Products Are the First of a New SmartDAC+ Product Family

Yokogawa has released the GX and GP Series of digital data acquisition systems, products that go far beyond functionality of the original paperless recorder. Complementing Yokogawa's DXA Advanced R4 series, the GX and GP bring some features that are…

Studies show that poorly performing alarm systems and poorly designed human machine interfaces (HMIs) are contributing factors to major accidents and poor operating performance. Speaking this week at the Schneider Electric 2015 Global Automation…

Process safety metrics based on leading indicators can help head off incident and injury

Industry puts substantial effort into ensuring that plants are designed and built to run safely. By their very nature, however, the safety instrumented systems (SIS) that often carry a lion's share of the plant's risk reduction measures are seldom…

The FieldComm Group is dedicated to advancing intelligent integration in process control and instrumentation, and its official introduction to the global process industry is planned for the 2015 ACHEMA Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, June 15-19.

The FieldComm Group was founded in January 2015 with the combining of two leading automation industry consortiums — the Fieldbus Foundation and HART Communication Foundation. The new organization is dedicated to advancing intelligent integration in process control and instrumentation, and its official introduction to the global process industry is planned for the 2015 ACHEMA Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, June 15-19.
With 170,000 attendees from more than 100 countries and 3,800 exhibitors, ACHEMA is the most comprehensive event for process manufacturing. By creating a larger-than-life "Technology Wall" in Hall 11.0, Booth E43, the FieldComm Group will show attendees how it is "connecting the world of process automation’" through solutions…

ISA100 Wireless is an open, flexible, scalable and IoT-enabled framework for process industry applications. The underlying technology is based on IEC 62734 and has been widely deployed around the world. This webinar will present an up-to-date introduction to ISA100 Wireless architecture as it is typically implemented and used today. The three main topics that will be included are the following:
-The major applications addressed by ISA100 Wireless.
-Network architectures, from point solutions to IIoT.
-Overview of the IEC 62734 standard.
The webinar will be presented by Jay Werb, Technical Director of the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute. Users evaluating industrial wireless technologies, suppliers building industrial wireless…

The next COTS technology waiting to take hold in process automation is lithium-ion batteries.

Remember when the PC was introduced back in the early 1980s? Most thought it would never be reliable enough for any type of process automation application. Fast forward 35 years, and it's impossible to find a DCS without PCs at the server level,…

Solutions for every stage of the process sensing, instrumentation, analysis, interface, networking and control experience light up exhibition space at Honeywell User Group America 2015.

Some user group meetings have so much good content that it starts to slosh over the sides of that metaphorical bucket. That's definitely the case at Honeywell User Group Americas 2015, where a brief Sunday afternoon preview of the demo room featured…

"Mobility is a philosophy about enabling users and improving productivity," said Kyle Reissner, Integrated Architecture mobility platform leader, Rockwell Automation. "Here at TechED, we're focusing on how mobility is being incorporated across all…

Prior to selecting an ac line reactor or a dc link reactor for mitigating the impact of harmonics in variable frequency drive (VFD) applications, it is prudent to carefully review the advantages and shortcomings of both and select the one that is better for that particular application.
Our sister publication Control Design, published the article "When to use an ac or dc choke and why" to help visitors determine the pros and cons of ac line and dc link reactors.
Check the table below to see the pros an cons and read the full article to learn more.

The huge Indian textile, refining and soon-to-be telecom provider streamlines from 500 legacy systems at 120 plants to just 35 standardized applications—and transforms its workplace environment at the same time.

Everyone knows to keep it simple, but it's rare that any simplification project is as gigantic as Reliance Industries Ltd.'s recent effort to update and standardize many of the legacy process automation and other systems at six major sites…

New tools are available to help mine the vast quantities of useful plant information that have accumulated over the years

It takes a lot of drawings and documents to run a process plant. Unfortunately, much of this information is stored in different and seemingly incompatible ways, such as on paper, in photographs, in proprietary CAD and other databases, and in legacy…

Fueled by the transferable ANSI/ISA-88 standard and streamlined by software, batch control is reaching escape velocity in its traditional processes, and migrating to new worlds of applications.

Julius Caesar usually gets the credit for "divide and conquer," but there's evidence he was just the most famous in a long line of ancient rulers to use it. That's the way with any great idea—everybody wants to make it work for them. Of course,…

In March, Dyneon GmbH opened and began operating the world’s first pilot plant to recycle end-of-life fluoropolymer materials in Burgkirchen, Germany. Dyneon selected a HIMatrix safety controller from safety specialist HIMA as the emergency shutdown (ESD) system in order to safeguard the plant's depolymerization reactor. The safety system transitions the plant to a safe status in the event of excess temperatures being reached to exclude the possibility of risks for people and the environment.
The compact, modular HIMatrix safety controller was developed especially for applications that require from just a few I/Os to several hundred I/Os. Its efficiency, compactness and simple assembly of the various control and remote I/O modules…

With increasingly connected systems, SIS is becoming prone to more cyber risks and vulnerabilities.

The SIS market is growing, and growing fast. By 2020, it is expected to be worth $3.76 billion in the U.S. alone. However, with this increased connectivity, the numerous cyber risks associated with these systems are coming with them. To prevent severe incidents at plants that could impact human life, assets and production, the challenges linked to these systems must be met with substantial protection.
According to new research, increasing Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Big Data adoption within industrial settings is anticipated to lead to substantial growth in the number of interconnected industrial control devices during the next five years.
The once-isolated SIS now faces multiple potential cyber threat paths. As a result,…

Part of building expected to fall completely as firefighters scramble for a plan.

Panic struck Peterborough, Ontario, Canada last month when the Genpak plant's roof collapse and emergency services staff were forced to evacuate.
The gas feed to the building was shut off and firefighters evacuated everyone from the building, but shingles continued to fall and the roof continued to dip slowly. Firefighters were scrambling to develop a plan in case the roof collapsed completely.
Witnesses say new shingles were loaded on the roof yesterday, in preparation for repairs.The City's chief building official went into the plant shortly after 10 a.m. to take a look at the structure.
Located at 25 Aylmer St. North, Genpak has 61 employees. It specializes in process packaging for a wide range of products.

Intertec is seeing increased customer demand for equipment housings to contain wireless process monitoring equipment in outdoor environments. The company attributes this partly to increased use of industrial wireless sensor network (WSN) technology, but mainly to the growing industry awareness that the glass-reinforced polymer (GRP) composite material it uses for all of its protective enclosures is electromagnetically transparent.
Until recently, process industry take-up of WSN technology has been relatively slow, possibly because competing wireless standards have made systems designers wary of making the wrong choice. However, for mainstream industrial process applications, the field has now narrowed to just two standards –…

Liptak Describes the Sequence of Events and the Primitive Controls That Led to the Three Mile Island Accident

This article was printed in CONTROL's May 2009 edition.

This is the fourth part in a series of six articles describing how process control could have prevented past nuclear accidents and could improve the safety of the nuclear power industry. In this article, I will describe the sequence of events and the primitive controls that led to the Three Mile Island accident and how proper design could have prevented it. The bottom line is that one can only control a process if one understands it, and that throwing money at it is no solution.

At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, Unit 2 of the 900-MW reactor at the TMI-2 plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania experienced a partial core meltdown. Between 13 and 43 million curies of radioactive krypton gases were released, half the core melted, and 90% of the fuel rod cladding was destroyed. The maximum offsite radiation reached 83 millirem, but the radiation dose received by the community was small.

Figure 1 shows the main components of the plant and the instrumentation that had a role in the accident (other instrumentation has been eliminated from the drawing). This simple process consisted of three heat transfer loops, located from the left to the right in the figure. The first or "primary" loop transfers the heat generated by nuclear fission into the high- pressure reactor cooling water (PWR). The heat from this closed circuit is transferred into the "secondary" feed water loop that takes it into the steam boiler. The steam is used to generate electricity in the turbine generator, while the waste heat from the condenser is sent to the cooling tower.

Figure 1

Here, I will describe each "domino" in the sequence of events that led to this accident and contributed to the public distrust of nuclear energy. After each event, I will note in parenthesis how properly designed process control systems and better operator training could have prevented the accident.

1) Operators working on an upstream demineraliser at 4 a.m. unintentionally caused one or more of the three HCV-1 valves to to go to "fail-closed" by accidentally admitting water into the instrument air system. The valves were badly designed because all valves on cooling applications should fail open. In addition, the operators did not realize that the valve(s) had closed. (Remedy: Select valve failure position correctly, and do not allow water or anything but air into the instrument air system. Add an electric motor-actuated parallel backup valve and provide limit switches on all valves with status displays and alarms in the control room.)

2) This caused the main feed water pumps (P2) to stop. (Remedy: Provide bypass valve(s) around HCV-1 and automatically open them if HCV-1 should be open and it is not., On all automatic valves in the plant, provide limit switches that trigger alarms if the valve doesn't take the automatically requested position).

3) Because the secondary feed water was stopped, the heat from the primary reactor coolant water (PRW, circulated by P1) was no longer being removed. This caused the temperature to rise and the reactor to scram (control rods inserted to cease fission). (Remedy: Alarm and automatically open HCV2, start the auxiliary feed water pump(s) P3, and actuate high-temperature alarm on the PRW inlet.

4) The reactor that was shut down continued to generate "decay heat," and the stationary secondary water in the boiler quickly turned into steam. This automatically started the emergency cooling water pump (P3), but that did no good because valve(s) (HCV-2) were also failed closed because of the water in the instrument air supply line. (Remedy: Same as in 1, plus provide safety interlock that automatically starts a backup pump and opens its valve if P3/HCV2 fails to respond.)

5) Next, the PRW temperature and pressure in the reactor started to rise. The high-pressure switch (PSH-3) on the pressurizer tank opened the pilot-operated relief valve (PORV-3), which started to relieve the PRW water into the quench tank (QT). When the pressure dropped and PSH-3 signaled PORV-3 to close, it remained open. (Remedy: The selection of fail-in-last position valve was wrong, so use designers who know how to select valve failure positions. Also automate the block valve HCV5 with an electric motor and close it if PFH-3 signals PORV-3 to close and it does not).

6) The operators did not know that PORV-3 was stuck open because the status light (L-4) was hidden from their view and because it was not operated by a limit switch on the valve, but only by the PSH-3 signal to the valve actuator solenoid. (Remedy: Place limit switch on PORV-3, and alarm if the valve status conflicts with the signal from PSH-3).